Here is some Dank News you can use.
Well, folks, the SEC is at it again, dodging any chance of playing an honest schedule. This time around, the SEC is dodging not only hard non-conference pairings but their very own future conference members.
As reported by ESPN, the SEC “announced Wednesday that it ‘directed’ Georgia and Tennessee to ‘postpone’ scheduled games with Oklahoma because the Sooners are on their way to the SEC.“. The logic behind this move, according to the conference, was to avoid scheduling issues as the back leg of the series was going to interfere with the timetable of when Oklahoma joined the SEC.”
This is nothing new for the SEC
What has been notable throughout the years are the cupcake scheduling tactics that the SEC has successfully pulled off. Not infrequently, the conference plays schools at the FCS or lower FBS levels late into the season, serving as a glorified bye week that many SEC fans have described as “needed rest” for the strains of playing their regular conference schedules. Criticisms from fans across the country have formed not only from this scheduling malfeasance (a tactic even Michigan seems interested in) but the penchant of SEC schools to cancel non-conference matchups with other schools.
Alabama famously did this to Michigan State in 2013, when they decided to cancel a home-and-home matchup with the Spartans in 2016 & 2017. Little did the Crimson Tide know that those two games would’ve been gimmes considering the empty cupboards Dantonio left the Spartans in the waning years of his reign as head coach.
The current advice the conference is employing to Georgia and Tennessee reaks of the same risk-averse nonsense the conference has run on for years. Throughout the ESPN piece, there are caveats and excuses rolled into their admission of this weak move. Whether it be scheduling or timing issues, the track record of the conference leads one to at least question the true motives of this action.
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Potential reasons for making the move
Is this a potential move to save the reputation of Oklahoma? Does the canceling of true non-conference road games scare the SEC so much that they’ll push it away from two of the biggest schools in their weaker division? With playoff expansion not set to commence until after Oklahoma and Texas join the Confederacy of College Football, there is also the simple explanation that has rang true a number of times: the SEC will rest on its bloated reputation as a conference to justify playing no one north of the Mason-Dixon line or west of the Great Plains.
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What really seals the pathetic nature of this move is who Georgia and Tennessee replaced for the games in question. As stated in the piece, “Both Oklahoma and Georgia have filled the Sept. 9 spot in their schedules. Oklahoma announced it will play SMU on that day and play a return game in Dallas in 2027. Georgia filled the scheduling hole on Sept. 9 of next season with a game against Ball State.”.
Nothing like a September clash with the mighty Cardinals of Muncie, Indiana to really test your conference’s mettle. Let’s hope to move into the future, the SEC can accept playing outside of the South when the expanded College Football Playoff comes around. Playing cupcake schools will feel a whole lot different when you have an Aidan Hutchinson or Chase Young smacking you in the grill when it’s 15 degrees.
